Are your Software Quality Initiatives Stuck in a Groundhog Day Funk?

Last weekend Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his underground hangout and failed to see his shadow, which, according to Groundhog Day lore, means an early spring for all. Boom! SmartBears across the globe are coming out of hibernation and rejoicing now that warm weather is just around the corner.

Every time I see this furry friend pop up in the news it reminds me of the 1993 comedy classic by the same name in which wise-guy Bill Murray stars as Phil Connors, a local TV weatherman stuck in a time loop, forced to relive the Groundhog Day coverage over and over again.

Aside from being at least one SmartBear’s favorite movie (yeah, I’m looking at you @Swede745), I started thinking about the parallels between what Phil Connors experiences and the daily struggles of the world of software quality.

Every day our customers tell us about their growing list of software quality initiatives. How long have your devs been talking about streamlining your code review process? How about finally storing your manual and automated test cases somewhere other than Excel, providing that traceability you’ve been waiting for?

Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough available talent or hours in the day to attack all of the desired projects. Among the most popular snippets constantly heard on the SmartBear sales floor are:

Before you know it another week/month/year goes by and we all feel like Mr. Connors, waking up at 6 a.m. every day, stuck in a perpetual state of software mediocrity. Now, rather than diving into all the amazing tools we have to save your day and increase reliability in your next generation app, all I ask is that we take the recent momentum provided from our old pal Phil and get a jump start on at least one new project for 2013.

In our ongoing quest to rid the world of poor quality software, Punxsutawney Phil is ready to lead us in the right direction. Let’s take this as an opportunity to break the mold and emerge this spring focused on new exciting projects, one test step at a time.